A good comic film with four great actors.
We are facing a light comedy that tries to remake a much older film that has a very similar story: three elderly people on the verge of retirement who are going to try to rob a bank. Although the film is a very welcome comedy and is not unpleasant to watch and rewatch, unfortunately, it brings to the fore a very serious problem that the USA, and other countries, insist on not solving: the precariousness in which we live when we are sick or has reached retirement age. It is not uncommon to see people who spend the overwhelming majority of their monthly income on medical and pharmaceutical care, and who find themselves on the verge of poverty due to very low pensions. The situation that it brings to us – a company that is going to close and that, through a legal device, is now able to use money from workers' pension funds to pay off part of its liabilities – is much more complicated, and I believe it could even be illegal, but the truth is that it wouldn't be surprising if it happened in real life.
Unfortunately, I haven't seen the older film yet. What I saw in this film, however, is quite good and worth our attention. The cast is led by well-known veteran actors and their work is excellent. At the same time, the situation is seen with the lightness that befits a comedy, even though it is a serious matter. The film does not need additional explanation, things happen before us, and the film pays much more attention to all the characters' problems, as well as the planning of the robbery, than to the act itself. It’s not “Ocean’s Eleven” or anything like that, there’s no roulade action or great refinement in the “art” of stealing. The intention is to make us laugh with the caricatured situation itself, and this is done in a reasonably effective way: it doesn't make us laugh out loud, but it does enough to entertain us.
If the film has any positive points to praise, it will certainly be the participation of the cast, who are far above average and deserve praise for the way they played and acted. The three protagonists – Morgan Freeman, Alan Arkin and Sir Michael Caine – are effective and create an excellent collaboration, and I would venture to say that the pleasure of seeing the four of them working together is one of this film's best assets. In the secondary cast, Matt Dillon provides welcome support as a federal agent tasked with investigating the bank robbery suspects.
The film is a regular comedy, it has no technical aspects that deserve an in-depth analysis, but what it presents to us is done with great effort and works well. The point that caught my attention the most was the bank itself, whose setting evoked old banks from the first decades of the 20th century. I discovered, in fact, that this film used a classified historic site as the setting for this bank.